Why I think “Efficient Studying” is stupid

Hey ,

I think the whole idea of "efficient studying" is straight-up dumb.

Here’s why.

On one side, you’ve got the “grindset” guys bragging about studying 16 hours a day like it’s some badge of honor.

On the other side, you’ve got the “I study 1 hour a day and get straight As” crowd feeding you productivity porn on Instagram & YouTube.

Both are missing the point entirely.

I don’t have beef with StudyTubers, but there’s ONE thing that I ABSOLUTELY hate… It’s when they start yapping about how they only study “Max 1 hour a day”.

Just yesterday, I studied for over 4+ hours in a single day. I didn’t really give a crap whether I was being “time-efficient” or not.

However, I was being mindful about whether I was actually locked in and focused, not studying passively and zoning out.

Optimizing your time is really important. But if you're obsessing over how many hours you study, you're doing something very, very wrong.

Your goal isn’t to minimize the time you spend studying.

Your goal is to MAXIMIZE the OUTPUT you get from studying.

That’s like saying: “I’m only going to the gym for 20 minutes because I want to work out less and get bigger.”

It does sound pretty stupid when you say it out loud, right?

So here’s my personal advice for you:

Stop hyper-focusing on TIME.

Start hyper-focusing on INPUT.

Instead of rereading your textbook, do more past papers.

Instead of rewriting your notes, test yourself.

Instead of watching “study motivation” videos, just start doing the damn practice problems.

Study smarter, not shorter.

To becoming an A* Student,

Matthew

PS: If you want to learn how to actually study smarter (like how many of our students do), you might want to check out A* Students.